Web design needs to accomplish quite a lot. It has to be easy to use, straightforward, and engaging. It has to inform, while also making the user feel comfortable. Website design should create brand recognition and promote your product or service.

5 Mistakes in Website Design

1. Too much on a page.

Embrace white space. When too many items are crammed on pages, the user gets lost and overwhelmed. Website designers consider what to place on each page, where to place it, and how to place it so the visitor doesn’t find the site chaotic. The best web designers know how much and how little to add on a single page.

2. There is no clear path.

Similar to having too much on a page, when there is no clear path for the user to follow, they get overwhelmed and lost. Our eyes naturally go from top to bottom and left to right. Web designers take advantage of this by placing the most important information at the top left and moves the user in this same direction to get them to click on another page.

3. Doesn’t highlight your company’s mission.

What does your company value—what do you care about and why? People want to work with people and companies that care about more than their own bottom line. How does your company want to make an impact in the world? This should be clear through your web design.

4. There’s no personality.

Your personality is your brand. And your company should have a personality. What are the 3 words you would use to describe the personality of your business? These should come through loud and clear in your website design. If your company is fun and innovative, make sure the design speaks this through the images, the content, and the tone. If your business is serious and smart, be sure your web designer highlights this personality in the web design.

5. Doesn’t connect with a specific audience.

Good web design needs a targeted audience. Know who you are speaking to and work to connect with their values, needs, and expectations. You want your user to feel comfortable on your site in a place where they belong.

How to Spend Less Time on Web Design that Works

Getting professional help with website design pays for itself many times over in both time and added business and engagement.

A professional web designer focuses on:

User Experience to create a design that is easy, informative, visually engaging, and gives the user a desire to explore the site further.

Brand Creation that is unique to your company, memorable, relatable, and promotes your values.

Target Audience that will relate to your company and share your website with others. This is the audience you’ll be able to build a relationship with.

Promoting and Sharing design strategies that will encourage users to move your company, website, product, or service through multiple channels of communication—electronic and good old word of mouth. Building engagement is critical in web design.

If you need a web design company in San Francisco and the surrounding areas, contact RDKmedia Web Design Team now.

What is Search Engine Optimization and why does it matter?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is essential to get your online content to appear in searches.

Search engines have algorithms for sorting content and placing it within search results. When content follows the rules of the algorithm, that content is much more likely to show up closer to the top of the list of search results.

When content is not optimized for search engines, it may not be seen by people using key words in a search engine (such as Google) to find information they are looking for.

This is why optimizing your content for search engines is critical. And to optimize your content, this means enhancing the writing, the design, and the relevance.

Search engine optimization doesn’t just increase your content’s priority on search results. Enhancing your content to follow the rules of search engine algorithms increases the user experience, making your content more readable, manageable, and visually pleasing.

Essentially, to reach SEO means to focus on your audience.

How to obtain SEO

It may take a few hours to write new content for your website, but the minutes you spend optimizing will be the difference between people finding your content or not.

Search engines, like Google, don’t publicize the rules of their algorithms, and these rules change routinely. Determining these rules comes through looking at trends in content that does make its way to the first page on a list of search results.

Again, the best way to reach search engine optimization, even with changing rules, is to focus on your audience. Create valuable content that your audience wants to read, is easy to scan and read, is assessable for many audiences, and is clear and specific.

Six Simple SEO strategies to focus on:

1. Write quality content.

Since Google wants to give its users a great experience, your content must do this too. Your content should feed an audience’s need—answer questions, entertain, provide action items, etc.

2. Focus your content.

To make your content relevant for a searcher, your content should be focused. This means sticking to the point and making your point clear and understood. Don’t ramble on to different topics.

3. Format is important.

Your content should be direct and concise. It should include a title, section headers, bullets, bolded font, or other strategies that make your content easier to scan. Your content should include images or videos that help to illustrate your focus. Images should be well labeled.

4. Re-stating key words alone isn’t enough.

There was a time when Google search engine optimization produced search results by simply finding content with the key words the user typed. Search engines have become more sophisticated than this and try to determine why a user wants to see that content. Therefore, frequently placing the key words in your content might be a good start, but it won’t be enough.

5. Hyperlink.

When you hyperlink to other relevant content, search engines have an easier time understanding what your content is about. The better a search engine understands your content, the easier it is to prioritize that content. Pages you link to should be relevant to your topic, credible, and of high quality.

6. Grammar. Spelling. Complete sentences.

These basics of good writing count. Again, search engines want to provide their users with a good experience, so your writing needs to do this too. Make sure your writing is clear and easy to understand by anyone.

Search engine optimization takes some time to learn and time to apply. But without SEO, you risk your content being essentially hidden from your audience.

Making a commitment to better understand and apply SEO strategies puts you on the path to getting your content noticed and shared. Begin using these simple strategies today and commit to learning more strategies.

If you need SEO agency in San Francisco California, contact RDKmedia now.